In his essay Pierre Nora distinguishes memory from history. He shows the differences between  history and memory. He introduces the places of memory which he thinks are needed nowadays. In his work he argues the fact that we talk so much about memory in the present-day, because there is so little of it left. This essay is divided in three parts, just like Pierre Nora’s work with a conclusion

The acceleration of History:

Pierre Nora notices the modern western societies are rapidly changing.¹ The changes become visible because the time between changes and renewal seems to become shorter. A good example here is the speed of changes in the computer industry. Every two year a new computer is outdated. We can say these changes take place on a quadratic speed.
Because everything, for example technology and information, is rapidly renewed. This becomes as rapid outdated. The present information seems so shrink, and past information seems to grow.
Because these changes take place on a quadratic speed Nora is speaking of an acceleration of history. An everyday normal event in the present, which is still a memory, will soon be history. 
Nora gives an example of the disappearing traditional pre-modern culture.² The peasants, or farmers lived day by day, not thinking and wondering about society at all. Ancient traditions were passed on from father to son and so on. These traditions, based on collective shared memory disappears with this acceleration of history caused by industrial growth, democratisation, individualisation and secularisation on global scale.

This acceleration of history confronts us with the brutal realisation of the difference between real memory (social and unviolated, exemplified) and virtual memory (history).³

The “acceleration of history,” then, confronts us with the brutal realization of the difference  between real memory – social and unviolated, exemplified in but also retained as the secret of so-called primitive or archaic societies – and history, which is how our hopelessly forgetful modern societies, propelled by change, organize the past.⁴

These changes, individualising, democratisation, of society results in a reigning fear everything will disappear and get lost in time. With time becoming less accurate to experience, these changes put pressure on the individual and collective identity.⁵ With the individualisation of modern societies the individual starts looking for his own identity, and becomes his own historian, looking for memories…

This results in an integrated dictatorial memory which is spontaneously and linking history to its ancestors. This memory becomes nothing more than sifted and sorted historical traces.⁶ With the growing amount of memory, because of the acceleration, the gap between real memory and these historical traces becomes only larger and larger. With the result there’s only history left. Nora calls this phenomenon lieux de memoire, or sites of memory. With these historical traces, and the acceleration of history, we no longer have real environments of memory, (milieu de memoire) but only lieux de memoire, sites of memory. A place to hold on and remind us to ancient traditions.⁷

Memory seized by history.

What is memory? And when is it history? Nora isn’t very clear in his use of the word memory nor history. During his essay there are several meanings of the word memory. Sometimes memory means history, sometimes it doesn’t. What is the difference between memory and history?. He also uses “different types of memory”, which he also doesn’t explain very concrete in his essay. Some memories are synonyms for other types of memories. Let us look at some textual quotes by Nora:

• What we call memory today is therefore not memory but already history.⁸
• The quest for memory is to search for ones history.⁹
• We should be aware of the difference between true memory.¹⁰
• …memory transformed by its passage through history.¹¹
• What we call memory is in fact the gigantic and breathtaking storehouse of a material stock of that it would it would be impossible for us to remember.¹²
• How did we move from the first memory, which is immediate, to the second, which is indirect.¹³
• What we call memory today is therefore nor memory but already history.¹⁴
• Even as traditional memory disappears, we feel obliged assiduously to collect remains, testimonies, documents, images, speeches, any signs of what might need to be recalled.¹⁵
• Modern memory is, above all, archival.¹⁶
• Leibnitz “paper memory” has become an autonomous institutions, museums, libraries, depositories, centers of documentation and data banks.¹⁷

Therefore we try to explain the different use of these different types of memories. The main problem of misunderstanding Nora’s use of the word memory is because it does differ in its explanation. This is because the definition of the word memory also changes. And what about history? What are the differences between memory and history? And how does a memory get turned into history? Because of the acceleration of history time is rapidly changing. We are addicted to archiving, written or digital material. Because of that reigning fear of losing our identity, we archive as much as we can. By writing history the direct original spontaneously memory is transformed into an indirect memory. We may approach  the question of this contemporary metamorphosis for the perspective of its outcome…(quote)¹⁸

So the memory changes (metamorphosis) into a different type of memory, Nora’s so-called modern memory and becomes history. Therefore history ‘killed’ the memory. Memory and history now become fundamental oppositions. Memory is the actual phenomenon, it’s bond to the eternal present. Memory is vulnerable to manipulations and appropriations. Memory takes root in the concrete, in spaces, gestures, habits, images and objects.^{19 .}History is now the representation of the past, the reconstruction, problematic and incomplete. History is no longer memory, because it’s an intellectual and secular production. It calls for analysis and criticism. History belongs to everyone, and no one.^20. The common thought is archive as much information as possible, at least some part of the memory will remain. But every piece that is archived is judged, weight or criticised by yourself, the historian. The real direct memory becomes indirect and less spontaneously.

Even if you make a photograph of a silent nature environment within the mountains. The way you hold the camera, the lights, shutter time etc.. all these aspects are own interpretations of the real situation. This may result in a nice picture, but not in a nice memory. The memory differs because in the end you only remember the photograph you took, manipulating the situation, instead of the actual memory. When looking at the photograph afterwards you might think, what a beautiful landscape. But was it really that beautiful? Or is just the beautiful picture which changed your memory? Creating these photographs is just one way of our obsessive need for archiving as much as possible. The modern memory, the memory which became history, is no more than a gigantic storehouse of material stock of information we don’t want to forget and impossible to remember. For example museums , libraries, documentation centres. The last few decades the amount of information in public archives has multiplied  enormously. Pierre Nora calls this obscene behaviour of archiving al kind of information ‘the quantitative revolution.’Because of the disappearing of the traditional memory we feel so obliged to collect any kind of remains, testimonies, documents, images or any visible signs of what has been. Now we can say that our ambition is not only the need to archive everything and preserve it. Instead of remembering all kind of information, we remember where and how to find it. Human behaviour shows signs of obsessive behaviour in creating archives, just to create archives with no reason attached. Because we are afraid of forgetting all kind of information and knowledge. A good example here is the popularity of the digital social network Facebook and the very recently discovered Twitter. Twitter is no more than a new media to archive small amounts of information you want to share with the rest of the world, with not even thinking of if anyone really cares. The need for archiving is bigger than looking at the results in perspective.

 Les Lieux de Memoire:

Because the identity is lost and everybody becomes their own historian, time can no longer tell us what is history and what is not. Time cannot combine the individual memory to a collective and cultural memory. At this point the places of memory are necessary. These places bind us, and gives the individual a part of the identity they’re looking for.

Those ‘Les Lieux de Memoire’ are a container for the memories. Not all of memories will be a part of history. What Pierre Nora means by history is more common for us to be known as the historiography. Historiography looks upon the method the history was written. For Norra it is history that looks upon and criticizes the memories. It needs to do that because memories are selective, they accommodates what suits them. A  more common example  would be to compare places of memory to a photo that you take during a party. You put it on your desk. It reminds you of the party. You keep looking at the photo. After a while the photo stands just for only a memory of you smiling. When you compare it with a camera recording the party ‘the history’, you find out that the memories of the whole party where affected just by that photo, and the party was not eventually that nice and you only smiled for the photo. Memories can be manipulated. Furthermore, memories deal only with the specific group of people or an individual (you on the party). Therefore a history of France is just a memory of France because it is specific just for French people. In such cases the history is often a victim of memory. Taking as an example the revolution in America; there are many memories of different groups, therefore none can be named the true one. The history in that case is helpless, it cannot exist and create one true memory. Pierre Nora writes about what happens if  people have little or no history but only reserves of memory. The decentralization of society happens, like in the case of Jews living in diaspora, they live in memory for their nation doesn’t have any common history. In his essay Nora is describing a growing need of societies to archive their memory. More and more libraries, photos, family trees are created. The need for that is caused by the fact that history threatens the identity of the memories by criticizing it, selecting only the true memories. The only factor for memories to exist is the history.

 “Moments of torn history away from the movement of history, then returned; no longer quite life, nor yet dead, like shells on the shore when the sea of living memory has receded.”Pierre Nora tries to present the places of memory as objects that are left after the living memory is gone. Those objects capture the memory, crystallize it, they are the link which binds the present with the past. Places of memory are gestures, images, objects, Pantheon, history books and diaries. They can have a functional, symbolical or material function. Usually we encounter all of the three functions in one object. A bible can have a material, symbolic, and functional role. For a person that is not religious, but still keeps it on the bookshelves, it can have a symbolic and material role.

In his essay Pierre Nora doesn’t come up with concrete conclusions. He some kind of suggests the question: Does the real memory still exist? This is awkward, because he only notes an increasingly demand archiving and the increasingly appreciation for these so called places of memory. Looking back into history we often see paintings inside caves of ancient cultures. Isn’t this a same kind of way of archiving? With only noticing this downward spiral he asks questions about the beginning of the spiral? A better question instead of “Does the real memory still exist” should be “Has the real memory ever exist?” There is absolutely no prove of that.

Conclusion

The popularity of Nora’s work is a result of the individualising of modern societies. He mentioned everybody is looking for their own identity. To have similarities with anyone else. Nora’s Essay thoughts are about a universal thought of memory and history. This universal idea might explain the popularity of his work. In that period the individualising became much clearer. Nowadays we’re even more separated from society and even more looking for identity. At first we feel more individual , but on the other hand we try to be connected to each other. Everybody wants to different, but still somehow connected to a community or group. This behaviour has become very popular. If we want it or not, this partly explains the popularity of social media like Twitter and Facebook. Everybody is posting information about an everyday normal event, without thinking about the results. This information is instantly archived and directly becomes history and a part of the gigantic storehouse of our brains. We don’t know the information directly, only the indirectly way to find it on a Wikipedia page. After the archiving the memory becomes history, because it is criticized. Ancient traditions are lost and we all are still looking for a collective shared identity. Time is no longer accurate  for remembering the memory. Because the memory is criticized and judged and turned into history, and saved somewhere in our gigantic storehouse. And time is irrelevant for the accuracy of the location of this historical information. Memory becomes history, and time becomes location.

This creates the “Places of Memories” , a location to remember collective identity. A connection to the past..